


kiss from a ghost

by VeloxVoid



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Haunting, Last Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Regret, Sad with a Happy Ending, saying goodbye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27608086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeloxVoid/pseuds/VeloxVoid
Summary: Felix's body may have perished in the assault on Enbarr, but his soul did not. Now, he searches for what will finally put him to rest. Unexpectedly, he awakens to find Sylvain of all people mourning for him.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 20
Kudos: 79





	kiss from a ghost

At long, long last, Felix woke up.

When finally he managed to pry open his eyes, struggling to focus on the dull grey haze all around him, he felt no pain.

That was what struck him the most. Not the stone-cold surface he lay upon, nor the hibernal chill creeping in around him to drag fingers of ice up beneath his clothing, but the fact that, after so long, no weight of concern pressed down on his chest. He felt no stress, nor anxiety, nor debilitating emptiness deep inside. He wasn’t concerned. He wasn’t irritated at the fact he couldn’t dredge up memories from his last waning consciousness.

There was nothing.

Felix, the last remaining heir of House Fraldarius, rose from the marble floor beneath him and looked around himself. The foyer of a great mansion lay all around: stone pillars to each side, great oaken front doors closed tight, the slightest cold breathing through the cracks in the bottom to chill him to the bone. Atop ornate cabinets and chests sat vases and ornaments of noble descriptions. It was glancing along the walls, however, that made a sudden fear curdle in the pit of Felix’s stomach.

Paintings loomed above him, depicting nobles. Some were young, some were old, but each of them sported unruly curls of flaming red hair. Felix’s eyes raked over each of them; the familiar face of the father — the Margrave — and his parents before him. He spotted the older sibling with the sullen eyes, staring with loathing into the head of his younger brother even when captured in oils.

Felix was in Sylvain’s family home.

His jaw tightened and he felt the fear inside him swirl into panic. Taking steps forwards towards the great marble staircase at the back of the foyer, he took sweeping glances around himself.

How had he gotten here?

The memory came back to him as sudden as a blow to the back of the head, making his eyes unfocus and his vision fade until his mind became filled with another image.

The battlefield. The last place he’d been, fighting in a mud-soaked field, freezing rain beating down relentlessly against his face. It slipped down into his eyes, up his nostrils, in his mouth. It rendered him blind — the harsh pattering of it against his steel armour deafening him. Yet through it all, he wanted one thing.

_ Where was Sylvain? _

Felix looked frantically around himself, scouring each set of armour for Sylvain. He could have been in trouble — getting caught in a tight spot and needed desperate help—

Suddenly, Felix had been felled. He had felt the most intense pain he’d ever experienced — his skin splitting to make way for the razor-edge of a blade scraping against his bones. It had made him scream, gargling through the hot, metallic substance rising in his throat. He had choked, and writhed, falling face-first to the ground and inhaling the slick, bloodied mud. An ear-shattering ringing resonating in his brain had overridden him. Panic dwindled to fear. Fear dwindled to nothingness as his vision faded. Yet over the ring in his brain, the bells screaming at him, he’d heard a voice. Sylvain’s voice.

_ “Fuck! Felix!” _

And now Felix was here. The quiet of the Gautier family manor overwhelmed him in comparison.

A sound from the top of the stairs made him glance upwards, interrupting his memories; a familiar silhouette jogged down the marble staircase, heavy footfalls crying out against the silence. Breath left their throat audibly in ragged pants. Wearing a full cape over a handsome doublet, the dark emerald colour visible through the slivers of moonbeams through the windows, the man swept down the stairs with a face of fury.

_ Sylvain. _

Relief flooded through Felix; relief and happiness and an adoration fierce enough to make tears well to his eyes. “Thank Sothis,” he muttered as the man swept through the foyer towards him.

He reached out his arms as Sylvain strode forwards, prepared to wrap himself in the man’s embrace. Finally, he could feel the heat of his skin against his own, after what felt like so much time alone. Sylvain was  _ safe. _ He had survived the battle. Felix stepped forwards, Sylvain’s golden eyes burning into his own, and grasped onto him—

Sylvain walked straight through him. A heat flooded Felix’s body as scorching as a flashfire, and he bit his lip to stop from crying out. Sylvain had passed through Felix’s body as if he were nothing more than mist, and Felix’s jaw dropped as the sensation of white-hot heat fizzled away.

_ What? _

A couple of steps behind him, Sylvain stopped walking. Felix turned around, hysteria rising within him, and watched the man shudder and glance over his shoulder. Even so, his eyes did not fall to Felix’s, nor to any part of his body — he cast his gaze confusedly around the room, seeing nothing.

It hit him. It hit Felix square in the chest, as heavy as the bricks that had cascaded down around Garreg Mach all that time ago. Sylvain couldn’t see Felix. Couldn’t even feel him. Felix wasn’t there.

He was dead.

His feet began to move of their own accord, taking him towards Sylvain. The man wore his best despite the hour: despite, from the looks of the sky through the windows, it being the middle of the night. His hair was dishevelled, sticking out in all directions and clearly unwashed. He’d let the beginnings of red stubble around his jaw grow out, and now he sported a short, patchy, unkempt beard. His eyes, however, were what concerned Felix the most. Their golden colour was dull, all the gall and mischief stripped from them; around them, his sockets were purple from lack of sleep, hollow from grief.

_ “I’m dead,” _ Felix whispered, his voice echoing inside his own head.

Sylvain gave an empty sniff and turned back around, crossing to a chest of drawers at one side of the stairs. Felix followed him with silent footsteps. The man stopped before the ornate drawers and glanced down, looking to a small, handsome picture frame sitting at its centre. One rugged hand reached out to touch it as he viewed the picture within.

It was a sketch — harsh pencil lines etched into yellowing parchment. Felix would recognise it anywhere. The memory had been buried deep, but as he looked into the sketchy lines, he remembered as clear as day.

Garreg Mach monastery materialised around him, Sylvain throwing a boisterous arm over his shoulders as he grinned into the face of Ignatz Victor. The young artist sketched them reluctantly in a battered old notebook, after succumbing to Sylvain’s incessant nags of “Ignatz! Draw us! Draw us!”

The sketch had been hasty, lines thrown around the page until eventually they’d materialised into Sylvain, huge toothy grin upon his face, and Felix, looking off into the distance with a face of thunder. Sylvain had taken it from Ignatz with a thousand thanks, and the boy had been grateful to scamper away unbothered into the monastery.

Sylvain traced the face of the sketch-Felix with his thumb, eyes brimming with tears as Felix peered into them. He hurt. He mourned. Sylvain’s lips tightened in the way they always had when he was trying not to cry, and Felix felt his chest begin to strain with sadness.

Sylvain mourned for  _ him.  _ He thought Felix was gone forever, abandoning him. A few moments ago, Felix had asked himself why he was here. Now, he knew.

He was here for Sylvain.

“I’m here,” Felix said, his voice bouncing instantly back into his own ears. Of course, Sylvain didn’t react — couldn’t hear him at all — but still Felix spoke. “I’m right here,” he muttered, reaching out a hand to touch Sylvain’s shoulder. The material of his cape felt hot, like smouldering embers. “... For you.”

The heir of Gautier looked up from the picture, eyes glazed over, before his head whipped around. Once more, he looked through Felix, searching the space around him frantically, golden eyes glowing beneath their teary sheen.

“Can... you feel me?” Felix asked, hand squeezing Sylvain’s shoulder. The man’s eyes widened.

Yet a sharp, ringing sound made Felix withdraw.

“Sylvain,” a voice called out into the foyer. “Sylvain, honey?" It was an older voice — a woman’s — warm, and shaking with concern. It echoed through the room and was soon joined by soft footfalls.

His mother. Sylvain’s shoulders tensed and he bowed his head, his grip on the picture frame tightening as the woman descended the stairs towards him.

The Gautier children had her hair. The colour of fire, it was highlighted gold beneath the moonlight, but the heavy ringlets shone out in a fierce red. She looked to be garbed in nightwear, but crossed the foyer to join her son anyway. Felix stepped back, watching silently.

"Don’t go," Sylvain's mother implored, reaching out to take his hands.

He held firmly onto the frame with one, letting the other fall limp as she grasped it. “I have to go,” he responded, voice as rough as gravel. Felix’s blood ran cold at the sound. It sounded like he hadn't spoken for days — voice either disused, or raw from screaming.

Still his mother persisted, her voice pleading. “Let him go.”

“I  _ have,”  _ he growled.

“You’ve  _ not. _ How many times have you visited him since he died? Enbarr is a long, long way away, Sylvain. It’s not healthy—”

Sylvain turned sharply in a flurry of capes, screaming from the bottom of his chest.  _ “He was buried in an unmarked grave! A mass grave, mother!” _

The woman wrapped her arms around herself, visibly beating back tears.

“Do you not think he deserves a visit? Deserves someone to remember him, showing him his death wasn’t in vain? You expect me to sit back and do nothing as his corpse rots beneath the capital of the people who killed him?”

_ “He’s dead!” _

Felix did not dare to breathe; he knew he wasn’t corporeal, but even so he was frozen in place, scared to make a sound.  _ Sylvain cares. _ The redhead stood with grit teeth, eyes burning holes into his mother’s chagrined face, chest heaving breaths.  _ Sylvain cares so much. _

It was almost too much to process. Felix hadn’t ever anticipated that anybody would mourn him after his death. He didn’t believe in mourning, or visiting graves; he believed in getting on with one’s own life afterwards, for there was no use dwelling on the dead. He hadn’t expected Sylvain to care, just as he himself would try not to.

He’d been wrong.

Sylvain let tears fall down his cheeks as his mother continued. “He’s dead, Sylvain. You need to let go. Mourn in peace, without digging up old memories every other month. You need to  _ heal.” _

“I already  _ have _ healed! I’m fine!”

“No you’re not.” His mother quietened and shook her head sombrely. Her eyes were exhausted. “I know you, Sylvain.”

That stopped him in his tracks. He turned to her, jaw hard and staring her down with furious eyes. Felix hadn’t ever seen him so wound up — not even in the midst of battle; now, his chest heaved and he looked torn. He looked like he didn’t know whether to scream at her, hug her, or simply break down into tears.

After a long moment, he relaxed, turning back around and looking down at the picture. “Just let me go. Please.”

And his mother sighed. She continued to gaze upon him, from where his body language pushed her away, before she turned. Silently, she glided back up the staircase and out of sight.

Once her footsteps had quietened, no longer audible, the man began to sob. He hunched over, holding the picture frame to his chest, and sank to his knees. Felix could merely watch, shaking. Only one thought crossed his mind.

_ Fuck. _

He knelt down before Sylvain, his lips parted as if to speak. He didn’t, however. There would be no use. Instead he drew closer, watching Sylvain turn around, sit down with his legs sprawled out beneath him and his back to the cabinet, and cry out into the room before him.

His scream was anguished, cracking and dwindling into a rattled nothingness as his sobs took over. The marble floor and brick walls of the foyer were unforgiving, throwing his voice back at him ten times louder and longer.

Nobody came to his aid. His mother remained out of sight, and the rest of the manor could have been abandoned for how quiet it was. It seemed as though nobody was home. Nobody was there to comfort Sylvain as he screamed tortured, agonised screams. Or perhaps he’d pushed away everyone who’d tried.

This was what Felix’s death had done to him.  _ But, why? _ Why did he care so much?

Felix couldn’t bear to watch any longer. He finally willed his legs to move and crouched down in front of Sylvain. Tears streamed down the man’s face unrelenting, so fiercely that it was disturbing. Sylvain was always so cocky — so headstrong and assured, with lazy smiles and winks and an infuriating insouciance. In this moment, he could not have looked more different from the man he used to be.

Felix’s chest grew even tighter. He shuffled closer, feeling warmth emanate from the other man. “I’m so sorry, Sylvain,” he spoke into his own silence. “I didn’t mean to make you hurt.”

Sylvain stopped sobbing, instead taking a frantic, shuddering breath and opening his eyes wide. They were glazed, fixed onto the picture frame he stared at so intently.

“I don’t even know why you’re hurting. I was bound to die in some stupid way or another eventually. First Glenn. Then my father. Then my mother, a few months after.” His heart twisted as he remembered his losses. Glenn and his father he’d tried to bury, but his mother’s sudden death hurt him bad. “I was next in line, when you think about it.”

“Fuck,” Sylvain said suddenly, the whisper cutting into the foyer’s quiet. He was fixated on the sketch, on the Felix within it. “Why did you have to go?”

_ Why did you have to go? _

Felix recalled his death, how he’d been scouring the battlefield for any sign of Sylvain. His eyes had raked the soldiers looking for a gleam of fiery hair, knowing Sylvain often got into trouble. The enemy had appeared from nowhere, the sudden pain had overridden him, and Felix had known, deep down, that he had been bested one last time.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” Felix muttered back. “I was looking out for you, because you always seem to need me. But this time, it cost me.” Unable to resist any longer, Felix let himself exhale, and he placed his hand on one of Sylvain’s knees. It hurt — burned like hot coals — but all he wanted was to touch him once more.

“No,” Sylvain muttered suddenly; his golden eyes were fixed on his own knee, on the exact place Felix held onto. Felix’s brow furrowed, and he squeezed Sylvain tighter. “What...?”

Panicked, Felix removed his hand.

It didn’t go unnoticed. “Are… are you here?” Sylvain looked crazed, golden eyes shimmering with tears and raking the space around him for a sign. “Touch my face if you’re here.”

Felix began to shake even harder, cold hard reality crashing down on him. Sylvain could feel him? He could communicate with him?

Reaching out one quaking hand, Felix cupped his palm around Sylvain’s cheek. The heat of his skin was blindingly hot; were Felix not dead, he would have worried about the damage of burns. But he  _ was _ dead, so he kept his hand upon Sylvain’s cheek, watching his face contort into one of horror, then shock, then curl into an insane grin. “You’re… here?”

“I’m here.” Felix stroked his thumb across his cheek, feeling the smoothness of his skin beneath.

It didn’t seem Sylvain could hear him, though; he didn’t respond, merely leant into Felix’s touch. “You’re so cold,” he said, a laugh crackling out from beneath his sobs. “Sothis, I’ve missed you so much.”

Felix’s free hand touched the other side of Sylvain’s face.  _ I’ve missed you too. _

Sylvain reached up his own hands, an attempt to hold onto Felix’s own, as he laughed and cried in half-delight, half-devastation. There he sat, holding both hands up to his face and sobbing, looking somewhat deranged. Felix didn’t care. He let himself cry too, the tears falling down his face in icy streaks, feeling as if they’d freeze in place like dewdrops against winter grass.

He had so much he wanted to ask. Had they won the war? He assumed so, since Sylvain was still here, free to explore the lands and visit Enbarr, but he still wanted to hear it. How was the Boar doing? Had they found the stupid Archbishop they’d risked so much for—?

“I love you, Felix,” Sylvain said, interrupting his thoughts. Shattering his mind. Making his teary eyes widen and his non-existent heart leap to his throat. “I don’t know why I never said it. I bottled all of those feelings up, and I don’t know why. I don’t know if I was scared to, thinking that you’d never love me back? Thinking it was better to live in silent admiration than risk getting turned down? Whatever the reason, I was wrong. Losing you, without ever telling you how I felt? Without ever knowing if we could’ve had something? This hurts so,  _ so _ much more, Felix.”

Sylvain loved him. As Felix’s lips parted in shock, he realised something suddenly.

All of the things he’d felt for Sylvain over the years — all the frustration and anger and pent-up irritation he’d gathered… Those were his ways of manifesting love.

That was what it was he’d felt for Sylvain, and that he had done for years. As a child, first meeting him, he’d been shy. As he’d gotten to know him, he’d liked him. He’d found him funny, and silly, enjoying his jokes. But sometimes the distant, mature glint behind Sylvain’s eyes would show; something dark and tormented, kept well out of sight. It had scared Felix, but through it he’d learnt to respect Sylvain as well as admire him. He’d wanted to get to know him better — to know those woes.

As they’d warmed up to each other, Felix had replaced his starry eyes with ones that rolled to the back of his skull at the man’s jokes. He hadn’t known why he’d grown cold towards him at the time — why he’d pushed him away. Now, he knew. It had been because he hadn’t known how to process love. Rather than admit it to himself, he’d hidden it down deep. It had shown itself in venom rather than with a bleeding heart.

Felix recalled the way he’d panic during battles trying to find Sylvain; he’d explained it to himself that Sylvain often got into danger and needed his help, but in reality… He loved him. He didn’t want to lose him. He wanted to protect him — to hold him close, and safe, and never let him go.

He’d missed that chance.

Sylvain began to speak again, through his shaken, wobbly voice. “And now you’re gone. The only thing I cared about. I just… Goddess, I must look like I’m losing it. Maybe I am!” And he gave a crazed laugh. “But, if you’re here… I love you, Felix. I still do. I won’t ever stop.”

Felix pressed his hands closer against Sylvain’s skin, telling him, begging him to know.  _ I love you too — I always have. And I always will. _

Sylvain squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s my biggest regret, not telling you. I should’ve just said it when we were kids, when it first began. We could’ve… I don’t know.” He shook his head, red curls bouncing. “None of it matters. You’re gone now. But, just know. I love you.”

_ And I love you. _

And in those few words — that short span of time — that was it. A gap had been filled. For the first time in his life, Felix felt whole. It was in a way he’d never thought he’d feel — a gap he hadn’t realised had been empty — but now his chest felt full and his brain felt hazy, in the elated happy way before drifting off into a comfortable slumber.

Felix took paces back without knowing why, watching Sylvain grow further and further away from him. Somebody took hold of his wrist. The grip was firm, and the skin was warm. Not a searing heat, nor burning cold — just warm.

Felix turned, and found himself facing Glenn.

A face he hadn’t seen for so many years somehow felt so familiar. It was as though no time had passed at all — now Glenn smiled down at him, the bastard still so much taller than him, with his pointed, angular face. The face that Felix had been told so many times that he looked like, despite him being unable to spot the resemblance.

Glenn was here now, looking like he’d waited an age, eyes relieved and deeply happy. “Before your time, isn’t it?” he asked Felix in that cocky, nasal voice he’d missed so much.

“Apparently not,” Felix shrugged.

They looked at each other for a long moment, Felix searching Glenn’s eyes that reminded him so much of his father, before they hugged. More tears fell down Felix’s cheeks as he felt Glenn’s arms tighten around him.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he heard himself mutter.

“I know,” Glenn simply said.

Felix looked back down to Sylvain, to where he sat against the cabinet. “Are you leaving?” the man asked into midair, a quiet smile cradling his lips. “Have you done what you needed to do?”

“Not yet,” Felix replied. He crossed the space between them, knelt down once more, and pressed his lips against Sylvain’s own.

Their kiss could only be light; any harder, and Felix knew his spectral form would slip through Sylvain’s mortal one. His lips burned feverishly hot, and his eyes widened as he felt Felix against him. When eventually Felix pulled away, he looked almost dizzy: drooped eyelids and a silly, wobbly smile.

A kiss from a ghost.  _ Huh. _

“Kinda creepy,” smirked Glenn.

“Shut up,” Felix snapped back.

The two shared a laugh, watching Sylvain’s bitter smile.

“Goodbye, Felix,” Sylvain said.

Felix patted Sylvain’s shoulder twice — in the way they used to before battles, to reassure one another. “Goodbye, Sylvain,” he whispered, frozen tears welling against his eyes again. He stood up, and paced backwards to his brother.

When the two turned around, towards the door of the Gautier manor, their parents stood. His father, ruefully happy, and his mother, mournful but expectant. Side by side with Glenn, Felix walked into the familiar embrace of his family, and felt himself finally fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much if you read this, and I hope you enjoyed~ If you'd like to catch up with more stuff I'm writing, I'm [@VeloxVoid](https://twitter.com/VeloxVoid) on Twitter!


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